Sunday, January 13

The Onion's A.V. Club interviews Anthony Bourdain, 'bad boy' chef and host of No Reservations, which I follow on Discovery's Travel and Living channel.

Bourdain recently became a father for the first time, and he's trying to squeeze in family time by bringing his daughter to "low impact" shoots. He shot to fame after the publication of his autobiography Kitchen Confidential, which in a way contributed to the rise of the rockstar status of celebrity chefs.

He also says that he's wary of chefs (or writers) who have a band on the side. I instantly thought of Jamie Oliver, who has a band who can never escape his popularity and would forever be reduced to providing the theme music for his shows. Oh well.

Was also pleasantly surprised that he writes fiction, mostly detective novels. When asked which he prefers writing, he admits that writing nonfiction is way easier for him:

Fiction's hard. I do it because it's therapy. I spend a lot of time writing about myself, talking about myself and what happens to me. Me, me, me. Fiction is a nice escape from that. You can also be a lot more truthful about a lot of things. Things I can't say in non-fiction, I can say in fiction. But there's that damn plot thing. I really resent plot. I like creating characters and environments.

His next writing project is about "It's about a former '80s "it" boy writer, who wrote a Bright Lights, Big City type of book, and ends up washed up in the Caribbean. Murder and mayhem ensue." Hmm..must look for that.